Abstract:

This study is based on an investigation into the teacher's self-perception of digital competence in Basic and Secondary Education in Cape Verde, developed during the Master's course in ICT in Education and Training at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal. As its goals, the study sought to:
(i) verify the infrastructure conditions of schools in Cape Verde for the pedagogical use of digital technologies;
(ii) analyze the self-perception of basic and secondary education teachers in Cape Verde concerning the area of digital skills.

For this study, we took as a reference the Marco Común de Competencia Digital Docente (2017), created by the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y Formación del Profesorado (INTEF) from Spain, whose objective is to offer a descriptive reference of digital competence for training purposes and to serve in the processes of teacher assessment and accreditation. The choice for this framework is justified because we consider it to be up to date and based on the European framework, DigComp (2016) and DigCompEdu (2017).

For data collection, we used an electronic questionnaire based on Marco Común's five areas of digital competence:
(i) Information and information literacy;
(ii) Communication and collaboration;
(iii) Creation of digital content;
(iv) Security;
(v) Problem Resolution.

Competencies were categorized into six progressive levels of competence: A1 and A2 - Basic Level; B1 and B2 - Intermediate level; C1 and C2 - Advanced level, according to the same reference. First, the questionnaire was validated by four Ph. D. professors and researchers from higher education and tweleve teachers with similar characteristics to the research participants. The methodology adopted was descriptive content analysis, based on the questionnaire that was distributed using the snowball technique. A return of 212 responses was obtained. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were used with percentage values in the form of bar graphs and tables. The results indicate that, regarding the conditions of infrastructure, computer equipment and internet connection, teachers consider that schools in Cape Verde are not sufficiently equipped for a pedagogical use of digital technologies. As for digital competence, we found that teachers' self-perception varies from basic (A1 and A2) to intermediate (B1 and B2) levels. The results also indicate a clear perception, on the part of teachers, regarding the importance of digital technologies for pedagogical work in the learning process and education.

Keywords:

Digital teacher competence, Digital technologies, School infrastructure, Competencies benchmark, Cape Green.